About TangoForge

TangoForge was founded in Wellington New Zealand in 2010. In August 2011, we relocated to Sydney, Australia to build the JewelLab with Nicholas Young, and in 2015 to Berlin to work with Roberto L’Ange.

TangoForge is a community of dancers committed to sublime connection and maximum artistry

We want delightful, elastic, and popular tango.

Delightful tango has a joyful social atmosphere, perfect unwavering connection, and surprising improvisation. These delights depend on revels who share responsibility for the dance, marks who are not afraid to play, and dancers who smile and make friends off the dance floor. Elastic tango welcomes diverse participants, gender flexibility, modern music, and exploration beyond expectations. We want tango to be popular so we have more people to dance with! Popular tango gets over its clichés and shows itself to be contemporary and chic.

We want women to be empowered and to share responsibility for the dance rather than dependently seeking entertainment. This is why we us the term ‘revel’ rather than ‘follow’. We want to liberate men from the expectation to be authoritative and perfect, so that they can be creative. This is why we use the term ‘mark’ rather than ‘lead’. We believe that dancing both roles is one important practical step in the direction of women’s full participation and men’s full pleasure. (Details about renaming the roles and more about gender.)

TangoForge is obsessed with effective pedagogy

A good teacher should enable a dancer to master connection and the 25 elements of the tango lexicon in about a year. To this end, we are constantly distilling instructions, according to these principles.

We Broadcast our weekly instruction to students around the world. We also offer courses for beginning and practicing at home.

Our KnowledgeBase technique encyclopedia provides procedures for every tango movement, consistent biomechanical instructions using anatomical terminology, and systematization of variations so you can improvise.

Pedagogy also includes the social situation. TangoForge offers a guide to Etiquette, as well as posts about the cabeceo, and women’s power.

TangoForge is committed to ethical tango

Tango at its best is inclusive and compassionate, open and generous, and liberates people to express themselves.

People should feel free to dance tango in either role, with any person, in any embrace, with any level of physical fitness, and to any music without fear of condemnation and prejudice.

To this end, TangoForge encourages gender flexibility and exploration through Queer Tango, which is a global movement to create inclusive and diverse space for Argentine Tango dancers. This means celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender dancers. It also means celebrating any dancers who want to experiment with different approaches to gender and roles while dancing Argentine Tango, such as women who want to lead, men who want to follow, and dancers who want to change roles while dancing. Queer Tango is inclusive, which means that people are welcome to dance tango in any roles they want, including the traditional ones.

The Rebel Tango blog shares raw personal experience and insightful commentary on the tango scene, with a concern for issues of liberation. Some of the themes covered are: Authenticity, Nuevo, gender, emotions, and style (by which we mean your clothes and shoes).

Beyond technique…

You can download the novel about tango that Vio co-wrote with Duro. (Duro y Vio = DyV). It’s called Aleph Bravo Tango and dancers say “how did you know how I feel?”

On the Guides and Resources page, you’ll find guides to Getting Started, your First Milonga, how to choose a social partner dance, and special guides for ballerinas and ballroom dancers.

Because costume helps us to incarnate our tango roles, UltraVioleta provides a portal to iconoclastic tango fashion with guides to shopping, dressing, packing, and curated links to designers and vendors. Your clothes do more than what is seen, and they should be as unique as your dance. What to Wear to dance tango.

About Vio

I mark and revel. When I revel I feel like a ballerina fairy princess. When I mark I feel like a man. I like to dress up. I can dance in any shoes as long as they are beautiful. I get high from teaching. I love dancing in close embrace. My favorite traditional composer is d’Agostino. I am a foodie, and I especially like dessert.